Principal: 'We aren't broken'

Teachers post Amercian flags around perimeter of Reynolds High School

On what would have been the final grading day of the school year, teachers and staff at Reynolds High School gathering for breakfast with Principal Wade Bakley.

After a teacher asked what could be done to help Bakley heal emotionally, Bakley asked those in attendance to accompany him outside to place American flags around the schools perimeter. The gesture is a school tradition marking national holidays  in this case Flag Day  but on Friday, it symbolized more.

Hope and healing is the theme, said Andrea Watson, spokesperson for the Reynolds School District. Flag Day is tomorrow, but this is also to honor what happened, because its time to put our community back together.

As 170 American flags shifted in the breeze, more than 150 school employees gathered outside the main gates to the Reynolds campus, not far from a growing memorial of flowers and balloons. Some hugged and wiped away tears, but there also was an atmosphere of unity, punctuated by a group cheer of Raiders!

Weve been tried and weve been tested, Bakley told the assembly, but were not broken.